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1 of 1- De_Profundis
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His "sensitivities" are annoying.
Is it common for my STBX to be overly sensitive about things?
("Overly" not just in comparison with me, but in comparison to how he used to be.)
Since dropping the bomb about TTT, he's been noticeably more.... okay, I'll say it... more dramatic in his reactions to our conversations.
(He's not doing HRT, or at least not yet, so I can't blame hormones.)
Other, non-SSN resources (try the subreddit "mypartneristrans" if you're feeling really strong, otherwise I don't advise it) would say, "Oh, they're just so relieved that they're finally able to live THEIR TRUTH with you, of course they're going to be emotional." Or "Isn't it wonderful that they trust you enough to be their real, vulnerable self at this time!"
No. No, it isn't wonderful. If I wanted to be with someone like this, I would have just stayed an adolescent!
The worst is when he remembers and casts up something negative or "nonsupportive" (of him) that I said months or even years ago. Or more recently, like things I said in my initial anger at his news. Who knew he was such a tender flower?
Geez, I'm an actual female and I'm not like that. All the women I know are actually pretty strong, having gotten that drama-queen nonsense out of their systems at age 14 or so.
Is he trying to exhibit this annoying trait as some part of his wrongheaded idea of "what a female is like"?
*** ETA -- we are planning a separation, but we're still in the early stages and must communicate during the planning of it.
Last edited by De_Profundis (July 30, 2019 7:49 am)
- StraightSpouse1979
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Re: His "sensitivities" are annoying.
My husband is overly sensitive as well but he is taking estrogen so I blame that in part for the sensitivity. Also, I think in part he may think that being overly sensitive is a female trait. There is TOO much estrogen in this home and at times I feel MORE masculine than he is which is in itself upsetting.
- Abby
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Re: His "sensitivities" are annoying.
My ex didn't want to be a woman but he always was very much into himself. He will spend his entire life exploring himself through various therapies and activities.
Given that the world revolves around him everything is filtered through how it impacts him. By interacting with him only on specific issues and keeping your emotions out of it you give him less
to mull over until he can find a slight and take offense.
I think as we distance ourselves emotionally from them we notice their behaviors more. Just keep on heading for the door because he is just a speck in the universe.
Try Gardening. It'll keep you grounded.
- StrongerThanIKnew
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Re: His "sensitivities" are annoying.
My ex was/is the same way, but it has subsided a bit now that I have gone grey to it.
My question to you is..... are you sure he isn't taking hormones or some natural supplement that one doesn't need a prescription for? Believe me, your spouse would not be the first one to do this behind his wife's back.
Otherwise, it could just be his idea of what it means to be "female." Remember trans-identified individuals say they feel like a woman, but they can't really know what being a woman actually feels like because they weren't raised or ever treated as though they actually were female.
But please allow me a small rant..... I find the idea of "feminine" many trans women identify with to be very off putting and insulting. It is all surface, and no substance. The men who want to be women seem to only want the clothes and the make-up, etc. They don't seem to want the emotional labor of womanhood. Makes me crazy.
- OutofHisCloset
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Re: His "sensitivities" are annoying.
When my ex was in his initial and most (to me) delusional enthusiasm, and was claiming he was "a woman in a man's body" (this claim strikes me, as it does to Stronger, as nonsense, because, not being a woman or female, no man has any way to know what "feeling like a woman" feels like, apart from cultural or social ideas of gender, which are, as most of us know, constructed, and normative, that is, designed to compel certain attitudes, psychological profiles, and behaviors), he reveled in being "emotional," because to him it "proved" he really was this (mythical) "woman in a man's body."
In fact, he made a show of telling people about how emotional he felt, pointing out that he was, for example, crying in response to a poem posted to our department by a colleague honoring another, deceased, colleague.
It was him thinking "emotion equals woman," so I will become emotional. And passive. And masochistic. Because that is what defines woman: self-erasure, a willingness to be erased, and pleasure in both self-erasure and in being erased by another.
It was all crap, just an offensive stereotype of female behavior that, by the way, underpins denying women full humanitiy and justifies our abuse (at one point, my ex was urging me to "do what I wanted" with/to him, to "overpower" him--in other words, a rape fantasy, because the ability to be raped--and to enjoy it because you know that you really wanted it--is the ultimate in being a woman). Just like most of his other ideas about what women "are" or how to signal he "was" one. The way he started using his hands and experimenting with touch made me inwardly shudder whenever I saw or, worse, felt his hands on me. Just to remember it still does, and why not? It was traumatizing. Yet as StrongerThan notes about her ex, my ex wasn't interested in any of the less titillating or less enjoyable aspects of womanhood, and in fact he got quite dictatorial--the extreme end of masculine, actually--about both my accepting him and his transness.
Pardon me, but this stuff unleashes the quite unladlylike emotion of fury in me.
Last edited by OutofHisCloset (July 30, 2019 10:22 am)